Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 59

• Back from New York, Part 1: The Tolkien Exhibition

  By ljd42 on May 1, 2019

  

  “No masks, wizard staffs, scepters, axes, bow and arrows, or swords are permitted.” Yesterday was the first time I’ve ever been to a museum show with such a rule! As I had promised in this space back on June 17 of last… Read More ›

• Some other favorite podcasts

  By ljd42 on April 29, 2019

  Two days ago I wrote about my favorite linguistics podcasts. Now check out my five favorite non-linguistic ones, especially the first two: Pod Save America Stay Tuned with Preet Hidden Brain Serious Eats Unorthodox  

• Weston: New England Math Champions!

  By ljd42 on April 27, 2019

  

  Congratulations to Weston High School for finishing first in this year’s medium-size schools division of the New England Math Championships! Weston earned 97 points to capture first place. Avon, CT, came out of nowhere to score 93 points, providing a… Read More ›

• Linguistics podcasts updated

  By ljd42 on April 26, 2019

  

  A year and a half ago — forever, in tech terms — I reviewed four linguistics podcasts: Lingthusiasm, The World in Words, Very Bad Words, and Lexicon Valley. Since then, the second and third of these have unfortunately ceased to… Read More ›

• The Silk Road, the Noodle Road, and Confucius

  By ljd42 on April 24, 2019

  

  You surely know about the Silk Road, even if (like me) you went to school before courses like World History existed. But do you know about the Noodle Road? If not, you should read Jen Lin-Liu’s excellent memoir, On the Noodle… Read More ›

• An upcoming reunion — words and all

  By ljd42 on April 22, 2019

  

  Yikes! My 50th college reunion is coming up! (You already know this if you happen to have read a certain post that I wrote a couple of months ago.) What was the famous class of 1969 like? “All happy graduating… Read More ›

• Roots and wings

  By ljd42 on April 21, 2019

  

  Looking back, do you like the way your parents raised you? Eight of my nine principal academic interests came from my dad: in alphabetical order we have editing, history, languages, law, maps, math, philosophy, and typography. We’re only missing computer… Read More ›

• The Israeli election, consciousness-raising, a potential Nobel Peace Prize winner, the college admissions scandal, the U.S. constitution, and mostly a Sierpinskitasch — all in one post

  By ljd42 on April 19, 2019

  

  Six topics in a single blog post? How can that be? Well, it’s all because those are six of the topics discussed in a single blog post in Scott Aaronson’s interesting blog, Shtetl-Optimized — all being examples of things that make… Read More ›

• A 5% discount (or is it a five percent discount? or a 5 percent discount? or a five % discount?)

  By ljd42 on April 16, 2019

  

  Like many of you, I grew up learning the traditional rules about when to write out numbers in words and when to use numerals. Most professionals continue to use these rules today, as in the following awkward paragraph from Talking… Read More ›

• Excellent carpentry, Verizon!

  By ljd42 on April 13, 2019

  

  Coleman Road, Arlington (corner of Wildwood Ave). That looks like a first-rate job, safe and secure, doesn’t it? Excellent carpentry, Verizon!

• Code Girls

  By ljd42 on April 12, 2019

  

  You know how college recommendation forms often ask “What three words first come to mind about this applicant?” In the case of Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Codebreakers of World War II, the three words would be fascinating, absorbing,… Read More ›

• A Truck Full of Money

  By ljd42 on April 10, 2019

  

  As you may know, Tracy Kidder is the author of some wonderful non-fiction books, including Soul of a New Machine, House, and Mountains Beyond Mountains. (He also attended both high school and college with me, but that’s not so important.) Apparently this really is a… Read More ›

• Crypto: The KEY to Algebra.

  By ljd42 on April 8, 2019

  

  This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post, where I wrote “I also gave a second talk, in a breakout session, on cryptography.” The crypto talk was a bit more informal than the keynote; it had an audience of about a… Read More ›

• I gave the keynote address… and lived to tell the tale!

  By ljd42 on April 7, 2019

  

  Yesterday I delivered the Keynote Address at the annual conference of the New England Mathematical Association of Two Year Colleges. Despite being an INTJ — which means that I should have been exhausted by the presence of so many other people —… Read More ›

• A student’s take on testing and related pressures

  By ljd42 on April 2, 2019

  Hello my name is worthless Name number and date State your class and hour Let the rubric pick your fate This is the first stanza of a high-school student’s poem, as posted by her teacher, Kevin Bosworth, in Diane Ravitch’s blog…. Read More ›

• Our Stories, our Stuff, our Somerville at the Somerville Museum

  By ljd42 on March 31, 2019

  

    What have you got in your basement? Yesterday I had the opportunity to see a fascinating exhibit of 79 artifacts at the Somerville Museum, all donated by Somerville residents. They have been organized by type of  object, as you… Read More ›

• Another #1 for Weston, plus a public service flowing from Weston to Dorchester

  By ljd42 on March 29, 2019

    Something else where Weston is #1: According to Commonwealth Magazine, “The most generous political donors in Massachusetts state and municipal campaigns last year, perhaps unsurprisingly, tend to live in some of the wealthiest communities in the state… Weston was at the very… Read More ›

• Bimbos of the Death Sun

  By ljd42 on March 27, 2019

  

  No, it’s not what you think. This hilarious novel, by Sharyn McCrumb, is a satiric mystery about a fictional SF con (that’s science fiction convention, to you mundanes out there). The protagonist is a professor of electrical engineering at Virginia… Read More ›

• Congratulations!

  By ljd42 on March 25, 2019

  Congratulations to the Weston High School Math Team for finishing first in the state in the Massachusetts Math League!

• Over the cliff

  By ljd42 on March 23, 2019

  

  Douglas peers down over the edge of a scary cliff: